Hamilton County Fair

Today was the Hamilton County Fair. Since I practically grew up at cattle shows and Mike has had a growing interest in cattle showing, since he started dating me, we helped Mike's cousin, Kelli, throughout the summer and during the show today.

Mike was on hair detail making sure every hair was in the right place.

While he did have some help from my dad and Tim, I would still consider him the fitter for the day and he did a great job.


Here is the judge picking Kelli for ...

Grand Champion Steer!

This was the third year in a row that Kelli has won Grand Champion Steer. She also took home Champion Intermediate Showman. Congratulations Kelli! You did a great job.

Mini Omaha Vacation

Last weekend the Bergens and Fosters headed to Omaha for a mini vacation. While we were only in Omaha for less than 48 hours, due to a strenuous irrigating schedule, we did pack many stops into our trip. On Friday night we went to Granite City Brewery for supper and my favorite dish, tomato bacon pizza, was awesome. After supper we had to stop at Cheesecake Factory for dessert because we couldn't resist.

On Saturday morning we went to Amatos for their famous Ricotta Pancakes, which were featured on Diners, Drive ins and Dives on the Food Network. While Mike thought the pancakes were good, they didn't compare to the ricotta pancakes he had in South Dakota as a teenager. While we were waiting for our food Mike taught Ava a new trick.


After breakfast we headed to the Henry Doorly Zoo for Ava's first zoo experience.






For supper on Saturday night we went to Ann's favorite restaurant, Sushi Japan, where you get to cook your own food at your table.




We had a great weekend in Omaha. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a little rain, so our trip could have been longer.

Putting Up Corn

Today I put up hundreds of ears of corn with the help of my mother, mother-in-law and grandmother. Both the Bergens and the Goertzens put corn up the same way by cutting it off the ear first and then boiling it for 5 minutes with 1 quart water, 4 teaspoons salt and 1/4 cup sugar.

We filled this basket with corn at least three times. Terry and Mike picked and husked all the corn, which was a huge help and made the process go much faster.

We used the same recipe that has been used for generations (you can see it is from the desk of Harley Bergen, Mike's Grandpa). Last year Karla helped me put up corn for the first time. We showed up with the exact same recipe and decided that Mike grandma and my grandma must have given the recipes to each other years ago.

Grandma Kroeker was in charge of washing the corn and cutting out the bad spots.

Next we cut the corn off the cob.

Then we mixed the ingredients and let it boil for 5 minutes. Then we let it cool before we put it into bags for the freezer.

We made a total of 30 bags of corn in different sizes. Now I know that some families put up corn on a much larger scale, but we decided this was enough corn for us and our families. How much corn do you put up and what is your family recipe.

Fire

Several weeks ago the Henderson Fire Department had a controlled house burn. Since Mike is on the Fire Department, he wanted me to take some pictures. It was pretty cool watching this house burn and seeing all of the volunteer fire fighters working to make sure the houses next door did not start of fire. Here are some of my pictures.

The Bradshaw Fire Department worked on the front side of the house.

The Henderson Fire Department worked on the back of the house.

Lots of people came to watch and take picture. There were more people than this, but I did not take pictures of them.


Mike was working on the Pumper Truck.

Community Days Parade

One of the events that is very popular during Henderson Community Days is the parade. It always amazes me how creative some of the floats are and the amount of work people put into their floats. Here are some of the winners and my favorite floats from the parade.

The Henderson Fire Department always has all of their trucks in the parade. Mike drove the 3rd one, which is the Pumper Truck.

There were almost 700 people watching the parade.

The Henderson Health Care Services float won the best overall float in the parade.

The Henderson State Bank float won best theme float. The theme was celebrating the past, present and future.

The Heartland FFA Chapter is always very active in Henderson Community Days.

Galaway Creek Golf Course won Mayors Choice in the parade.

Even the class of 2020 had a float.


I found these boot during the parade.

Would it surprise you that this guy was wearing those shoes? He was pretty proud of the shoes, which I would have never noticed if he wouldn't have pointed them out to me.

Sneak Peek

This week I had Community Days Hangover, which usually happens after a big chamber event because I need to make up for a lack of sleep, clean up all of the final details, get my house back under control and get caught up with everything I neglected while I was working. This is the reason for my lack of blogging and unfortunately today won't be much better because we are off to a wedding this afternoon, but here is a sneak peak of what is coming tomorrow.

A relaxing start to a crazy week... kind of

This week is the most stressful week of my job because this weekend is Community Days. I have to say I am pretty organized this year, but coordinating a three day event is still stressful no matter how much you organize.

Knowing this week would be stressful, I decided to use one of my 30 minute massage certificates to help me relax. The massage would have been a lot more relaxing if I would have remembered to take my certificate with me to work. Instead I rushed home and to the appointment feeling more stressed and unorganized that I should have been at that point, but I did make it to the appointment mostly on time.

If any of you are wanting a good massage, go to Brooke Marshall. She does a great job.

Sorry for the boring picture, there are not many picture options when you are getting a massage.

Thanks mom and dad for the great Birthday gift, even though it took me over 6 months to use it.

I knew my Weeds were getting Bad

I did not know that my weeds were getting so bad that my dogs thought they had to chip in and help. This is what I found after leaving Hunter James outside for a while.



Here is Hunter standing in front of his handy work.

Cora Dress

I finally got my hands on a Cora dress for my niece Ava Rose Foster.

I have been following the Macs blog for a while now. I don't know them personally, but I heard about their situation through a mutual friend, Kara Janzen. I could not stop reading their blog when their baby Cora Paige was sick. While Mike and I were driving to Gothenburg for our nieces baptism I checked their blog on my phone, only to find that Cora has passed away that day. As soon as I found out about the Cora dresses I knew I had to give one to my niece. I finally was able to buy one last month and I was so happy that I could give such a meaningful gift to Ava.

Cover of the York News Times

During the summer of my junior year of college I had an internship with the York News-Times. From time to time they will still call me to take pictures at Henderson events when all of their reports are busy. On Sunday I took pictures at the Henderson Garden tours and my picture was published on the front page above the fold in the Wednesday paper. I'm guess they though it was a really good picture, or it was a really slow news week. Either way it's still cool.

This is the actual picture that appeared in the paper.